A man in North Korea is reported to have been executed after killing his two children for food.

The Sunday Times has reported a "hidden famine" in North and South Hwanghae, North Korea's farming provinces, which has killed more than 10,000 people.

An investigation into the issue by undercover journalists from Asia Press found the acts of cannibalism came out of desperation for food.

One informant from South Hwanghae said: "In my village in May a man who killed his own two children and tried to eat them was executed by a firing squad.

"While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home he offered her food, saying 'we have meat'.

"But his wife, suspicious, notified the ministry of public security, which led to the discovery of part of their children's bodies under the eaves."

Another man dug up his grandchild's corpse for food, and another man boiled his own child and ate the flesh, said the Sunday Times.

A hospital administrator said there was no wood for coffins or cremations.

The Sunday Times said last year officials in North Korea confiscated food from the farming regions to feed the army and reward residents in the capital for loyalty to the Kim dynasty.

After a drought hit the regions from April to June, families in the area began to die.

According to one of the journalists for Asia Press, the nation's leader Kim Jong-un did not help the problem with his "political waste", ordering new apartment blocks, staging "lavish" festivities, and attending a pop concert with his pregnant wife.

Sunday Times said Asia Press was a specialist news agency based in Osaka, Japan, which had several journalists inside North Korea.